A first: Newt camp goes on attack (and with oppo)

By JONATHAN MARTIN

12/26/2011 04:11 PM EST

In a sign that he's formally backing off his pledge to avoid negative politics, Newt Gingrich is taking direct aim at Mitt Romney.

Gingrich's campaign, urgently in need of recapturing their momentum from earlier this month, is putting out a statement mocking a new Romney ad, in which the former Massachusetts governor portrays himself as a "conservative businessman."

“Can we trust a Massachusetts Moderate to enact a conservative agenda?" says Gingrich communications director Joe DeSantis. "Our campaign might have plenty of things to say about that, but the best response certainly comes from Mitt Romney himself: 'I think people recognize that I am not a partisan Republican. That I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.'"

That quote comes from 2002 when Romney was running for governor of the Bay State and doing everything he could to downplay his party label and appeal to independent voters.

Included with DeSantis's statement are a slew of past Romney quotes in which he similarly says things that are unhelpful in the context of a GOP presidential primary.

While many of the quotes aren't new, the combination of a spokesman launching a conventional attack and sending along oppo is certainly novel for Gingrich. He has thrown elbows at Romney in the past, but it was usually a spur-of-the moment move and it came only from the candidate's mouth. This is a different thing - a planned assault.

His campaign had signaled before Christmas that they were going to draw contrasts with Romney on taxes and growth, but today's move indicates a more significant step toward something that mixes issues and political character.

Full oppo sheet after the jump:

FACT SHEET: MITT THE MASSACHUSETTS MODERATE

· “Mr. Romney . . . criticized the Republican campaign agenda, the "Contract With America," as too partisan. He said he would have gone against the GOP leadership and supported the [1994 Clinton] crime bill, and would oppose a capital gains tax cut.” (Source: Washington Times, 10/28/1994)

· “[Romney] modeled himself on Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld (R) — apparently on an easy path to reelection — striking a conservative stance on fiscal issues, crime and welfare but a liberal position on abortion and other social issues.” (Source: The Washington Post, 10/29/1994)

· “Eager to show that he is a moderate independent and no ideologue, Romney stressed his support for universal health insurance and abortion rights, criticized the Republican "Contract With America" promoted by the party’s congressional leaders and, at Faneuil Hall, was more outspoken than Kennedy in arguing that the Boy Scouts should not exclude homosexual youths.” (Source: The Washington Post, 10/29/1994)

· “Romney has indicated that he would side with the moderate wing. He endorsed the crime bill and refused to back Gingrich’s jejune ‘Contract with America.’ He told me he would have backed Chafee’s health care bill. ‘I’m willing to vote for things that I am not wild with,’ he said.” (Source: New Republic, 11/7/1994)

“We first have to get a budget in balance before we may have substantial tax cuts.”

(Source: Harvard Crimson, October 21, 1994)

“Everybody in our state has to have health insurance. We`re not going to have free riders…And that`s a model which I think has some merit more generally.” (Source: PBS, 6/5/2006)

“I’m proud of what we’ve done. If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.” (Source: Newsweek, 12/2/2007)

“I think you’re going to find when it’s all said and done, after all these states that are the laboratories of democracy, get their chance to try their own plans, but those who follow the path that we pursued will find it’s the best path, and we’ll end up with a nation that’s taken a mandate approach.” (Source: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/12/165768/romney-mandate/)